blogging...triad deals..."freebie"

I really am having fun with this blog! Thanks everyone for reading and  participating. As I was contemplating what I will blog about for a whole year, I realized that 2 months have gone by already! Wow! Time really does fly by. I keep this running list of things to blog about, but I'm wondering if any readers have specific questions about different areas of "tightwaddery." Anything you might me wondering about? Wanna pick my brain about something? Or maybe even an area of expertise that you could share?

Pollen counts are the highest they have been since they started keeping track 13 years ago...everywhere you look there is a greenish-yellow hue. Thankfully, none of the fam has any significant allergy issues or we'd be in trouble! I LOVE this time of year....no heat, no ac. Cheap electric bill!! I have decided I am a warm weather type of person. You can keep that cold stuff.

For those of you in the triad, Clover Leaf grocery is having their 5/$5 sale this week. This is when I stock up on peanut butter, dressing and other items. They also have burger for $1.58#, which is a stock up price for me. HT has fresh bone-in chicken breast for 97 cents#, also a stock up price, so I will be filling the freezer this week.

Here's a form to get a coupon for free land o lakes butter with purchase of land o lakes, so it's essentially B1G1 free: http://www.landolakes.com/products/light-butter-with-olive-oil-switch-for-free.cfm Good until 5/31.

kids and birthday parties, great freebie...but hurry!!

Four kids equals lots of birthday party fun...and even for a tightwad like myself, it can be a challenge to provide a fun time without seeming to be...ahhh...well...a tightwad:). I can tell you that it has always been a pet peeve of mine that my kids go to a party and come home with party favors that are more valuable than the gift they brought. I must be honest though, it seems that there has been a bit of a down tick in that dept., and I'm thankful.  Blame it on the economy if you will, but I also think that a little rationality is seeping into the collective conscience and parents are realizing that overt materialism is not such a good thing after all.

I just read an article in our paper by Kathy Peel (great author of family management books) about this very subject, so I thought I'd tackle it. Some of her highlights:

1. Kids up to 3 years of age should have morning parties that are only 60-90 minutes long. This avoids afternoon naptimes and the grumpy factor.

2. One lady bought a blow up "moon walk" on ebay for less than she could have rented it, used it once, and resold it on ebay for more than she paid. Now that's smart thinking!

3.Another lady had a "pajama party" at Krispy Kreme for her 3-year-old daughter. She bought little pillows at a dollar store and had milk and donuts for the kids and coffee for the parents.

4. Make your own invites and hand deliver. (One thing I would add here, if your child has a bigger school class, don't hand deliver at school. And please don't invite everyone in the class and leave out only one or two kids...that's just plain ol' mean.)

Now here are some things that worked for us:

I didn't have parties until my kids were big enough to remember. I mean, honestly, who's that one-year-old party for anyway? If we happened to have family in town, we maybe had them over. This is rare because we are so far from family. (I remember one summer when we were in Mich on Lee's birthday and combined it with a family get together)  We always celebrated the younger years with our own fam, and when you have 4 kids, you have enough for a party anyway!! At our house, you can pick your evening meal (usually pizza, lasagna, broccoli soup-that's Lee-or homemade mac and cheese). They also pick the kind of cake they want...with a heavy leaning toward carrot or chocolate. When the kids were little, I made themed (dinosaur, barbie, hot wheels, Mr. Potato head, etc..) cakes, but I have never purchased one from a store/bakery.

Around age 5, the kids were allowed to invite one friend for a party and/or sleepover. Since most of our friends have more than one kid, this usually turned into inviting the whole family over for the meal. Age 10 was our first "big party," when the kids got to invite whoever they wanted.  This tended to be 10 or so kids. One kid did a movie night at the dollar theater, one spent the afternoon at a large park. Again, I tend toward the less organized, less expensive venues. We were in Maine when Will turned 10. I was working full time and was really tired. We just invited his friends over for the day. It had rained hard the day before, so they brought swim trunks and water guns and had a blast running through puddles. I was feeling kinda bad about not planning more when one kid came bursting into the house shouting, "This is the best party EVER!!!" Sometimes less really is more! Thirteen then became the next "bigger" party. Will went for laser tag, Aaron chose a movie marathon (LOR), Abby had a sleepover...Lee has a year to go!

And going to parties? I don't spend over $10.00 for a gift. If the kids want to add more out of their own pockets, they can...and now that they are older, they often do. I still pick up new gifts at yard sales, the kind still in shrink wrap with tags attached. I also get like-new hard back books. Often these are $20 retail books that I find for a buck. Great gifts!! Again, now that my kids are older, they like to buy their own gifts for friends, which is fine with me!!

And gifts for my own kids? You can imagine that I shop way ahead and try to get things on sale. The older they get, the harder it is. Typically, they get one "bigger" gift  and then 2 more smaller ones, and always a book. The cost of the "bigger" gift determines how much I spend on the rest.

There are some thoughts...I'm sure I've been inconsistent, and someday my kids will tell me how unfair I was...story of my life!!

Happy Birthday shopping!!

And here's a great freebie for a cleaning caddy filled with products, good for the first 3000, click here:

http://www.rightathome.com/Offers/Pages/SpringCleaningCaddyGiveaway_ThankYou.aspx?OC=1&optin=true

The Blind Side, look for lost money

Today, I had to go in to work at the hospital for a few hours...which is hard to do when it's 85 degrees...but it was OK. Then I came home to a $4.99 rebate check in the mailbox, went to Aldi and spent $99.00 and stopped at Carolina Thrift so Abby could do some shopping for costumes for her school play. It's set in the 40s, so she was looking for dresses, and we did find a few. I bought one of those huge pizzas at Aldi...the kind that are "take and bake." At Wal-Mart they are $8.99 now, but they're only $5.99 at Aldi. I bought all the stuff to make homemade pizza, but then I was a slacker and took the easy route. One of those large pizzas and a 69 cent bagged salad, along with the Aldi brand "crystal light" style lemonade @39 cents for 2 quarts, made an entire supper. So it was still cheaper than eating out, which I considered. See, it is spring break, and tonight we finally were all home and went to see The Blind Side together. I knew I was gonna cry (I'm a sap at the movies) but I had NOOOO idea I'd pretty much cry through the whole thing. Good Heavens! What a tear-jerker. If you haven't seen it, you need to. It'll be one that I add to my video collection.

I don't know if this applies to anyone reading my blog, but if you are an active duty military member, it's worth knowing: Starting now until 12/31/2010, SeaWorld is offering all active duty military from all service branches, active members of a reserve or National Guard unit, and three direct dependents a free day at SeaWorld (at select locations). Click here for the form: http://commerce.4adventure.com/store/os_application.asp

If you've never checked this site, you might want to. It lists money that is being held in state treasuries as "lost." I have never personally found any, but I have had friends and family members whose names have popped up. You can type in anyone's name, so check for all your family members and also check your maiden name, if applicable:
http://www.missingmoney.com/ ....you never know!! (I only expect 10% commission for the tip:).

Free John Frieda shampoo sample click here: http://www.johnfrieda.com/promotions/promoOptinPost.asp

That's enough for tonight...happy savings!

He is Risen...share our tradition...listen to this Keith Green Classic

Sunday's here!!



Here's the "EASTER SONG"....sung by the man himself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3kc1jDahU4

Saturday's here...but Sunday's a comin....

Here's to Saturday...esp. to sunny, warm Saturdays. Will and I went to a few yardsales this am. Here's a picture of my best find...a solid oak reproduction of an antique icebox.(I can't get it to "turn" on this screen???) Heavy as all get out, but beautiful. 20 bucks.

And then the rest of the day? I'm in the middle of 5 loads of laundry (2 on the line), made a huge pot of homemade cheddar mac n cheese, 24 deviled eggs, 1 gallon of sweet tea and herbed cauliflower for my contribution to our now annual homegroup Easter dinner, washed the living room windows (and am already realizing I should have waited until the pollen dies down) and have looked up umpteen college videos with Abby. We had a great time at Duke and Carolina yesterday. Very beautiful campuses. And Mike? Tilled the garden and planted beans and lettuce, mowed the lawn, went in to school for an interview with a perspective teacher and is now washing and vacuuming vehicles. He LOVES to garden, here's a couple shots from today:

And the kids? Abby took a long nap and is reading Austen's "Mansfield Park." The boys are just being boys enjoying break: here's a shot of Aaron, Lee and neighbors Levi and Mohammed.

So there's a frugal day at the Cliff house for you!

Coupon for free goat cheese for joining the club, click here: http://www.chavrie.com/  look for the link

Click here for a chance to win a $15,000.00 scholarship! I'm not sure if you actually have to buy the product (it's pasta) I did buy it and liked it! Other prizes also!

http://www.smarttastechallenge.com/index.cfm?r=34729f93-2f20-451b-8f42-e5a5e0a09091

Happy Day!

Funny picture for you:

Good Friday....but Sunday's a coming...

Winner of April 1 drawing: Pat S., Ellsworth, Maine...congratualtions!

Our school break starts today. It's sunny and supposed to be 90 today, we are going to spend the day in Raleigh. Looking forward to it! Taking Abby to visit a few college campuses. Wow, how has this happened??

Here's a freebie for you...one of those facebook deals. I should mention that if you don't have facebook and don't really want one, you can sign up under a nickname and not upload any pictures...then you can still get in on the freebies. No nonsense is giving away free socks to the first 100 who sign up EVERY DAY at this link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/No-nonsense/105462225848?v=app_4949752878#%21/pages/No-nonsense/105462225848?v=app_4949752878

So, I would sign up early in the am if I were you! I just tried at 8 am, and they were gone for the day, so you'll have to start early.

Free sample of Orville's Cheddar Cheese Popcorn here: http://startsampling.com/retail/kroger/

If you're a crocs fan, http://www.crocs.com/ is having a 25% off with free shipping sale!

http://www.restaurant.com/ ....use the code CHOW and get 80% off; $25 coupon for $2!! I LOVE this site.

OK, have a great day!!

Resurrection cookies recipe...Glorious Easter

Maundy Thursday....but Sunday's coming...

OK, this is a fun recipe for those of you with little ones...I made these when my kids were small. Don't you hate that holidays...esp Christian holidays...are so commercialized? And it's easy to get caught up in the trap. Yes, we do make Easter baskets every year. I've reused the same baskets and "grass" every year for at least 10 years now. I asked the kids if I should get new ones. They looked at me like I was crazy!! We like traditions. I buy on-sale candy the year before (the hard candy anyway) and fill in around the edges with other things.  I try to put in a Christian book, CD or video. I pick these up used and because it's always been that way, the kids are cool with it. We always start Easter morning by playing Keith Green's "Easter Song" (He is risen...alleluia...) REALLY loud...another tradition. And over the past 4 years, we have started having Easter dinner with our chuch home group, since we are all away from other family. So the newest tradition is Steph's Blueberry Goo...which is marvelous! Can't wait! But the most important thing is to focus on the real reason we celebrate....

 "Resurrection Cookies"

~Also known as Easter Story Cookies~

This is a great recipe to teach your Children the REAL story of Easter. That the Lord Jesus Christ

our Savior is not dead but has Risen. We serve a Risen Savior......

This activity can be done as a "family" or for Sunday School. Of course the Sunday School option might

be to hand it out to the class with a note to the parents. Grandparents might considering

doing this with their grandchildren this year too!!!

You will need:

1 cup whole pecans

1 teaspoon vinegar

3 egg whites

a pinch salt

1 cup sugar

a zipper baggy

1 wooden spoon

scotch tape

Bible

Instructions:

These are to be made the evening before Easter. Preheat oven to 300F.

*** (this is very important --- don't wait until you are half done with the recipe).

Place pecans in zipper baggy and let children beat them with the wooden spoon

to break into small pieces. Explain that after Jesus was arrested. He

was beaten by the Roman soldiers. Read: John 19:1-3

Let each child smell the vinegar. Put 1 teaspoon vinegar into mixing bowl.

Explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross He was given vinegar

to drink. Read: John 19:28-30

Add egg whites to vinegar. Eggs represent life. Explain that Jesus gave His life

to give us life. Read: John 10:10&11

Sprinkle a little salt into each child's hand. Let them taste it and brush the rest

into the bowl. Explain that this represents the salty tears shed by Jesus' followers,

and the bitterness of our own sin. Read: Luke 23:27

So far the ingredients are not very appetizing. Add 1 cup sugar. Explain that the

sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because He loves us. He wants us to

know and belong to Him. Read: Psalm 34:8 and John 3:16

Beat with a mixer on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks are formed.

Explain that the color white represents the purity in God's eyes of those whose sins

have been cleansed by Jesus. Read: Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3

Fold in broken nuts. Drop by teaspoon onto waxed paper covered cookie sheet.

Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus' body was laid.

Read: Matthew 27:57-60

Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF.

Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door.

Explain that Jesus' tomb was sealed. Read: Matthew 27:65-66

GO TO BED!

Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven overnight.

Jesus' followers were in despair when the tomb was sealed. Read: John 16:20&22

On Resurrection Sunday (Easter) morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie. Notice the cracked

surface and take a bite. The cookies are hollow! On the first Easter Jesus' followers were amazed

to find the tomb open and empty. Read: Matthew 28:1-9